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New book: A spiritual approach to swimming the English Channel

For Adriano Passini from Brazil, with a longstanding love for triathlons and warm water, the cold English Channel was something like a myth in his youth – fascinating, but impossible to achieve.

However, Adriano's life changed when he started to practice meditation. Inspired from within, and by his teacher Sri Chinmoy`s philosophy of inner and outer self-transcendence, he decided to take up the challenge of the Channel. In his new book The Challenge of the English Channel: A Spiritual Approach to the Mount Everest of Swimming, Adriano shares the joys and hardships of his two-year-journey of physical and spiritual preparation and reveals to the reader how, with sincere dedication, the power of the heart, and God`s Grace, seemingly impossible dreams can become a reality.

The English Channel is often called the Mount Everest of Open Water Swimming. There may be longer or more difficult swims, but the challenge of swimming the English Channel remains stupendous. Swimmers will have to brave not only the vastness of the sea and all the elements, but also face their inner demons and weaknesses. Cold water, currents, waves, fog, sudden weather changes, cargo ships, jellyfish, seeweed, swimming in the dark, increasing fatigue, doubt, fears and hours of solitude force the swimmer to dig deep to be able to reach the “Golden Shore.”

Praise

"This book is one of the best I have seen on the subject. It covers how to increase chances of success, what is out of the hands of the swimmer and what will likely contribute to failure. ... A most inspiring telling with great tips that are very readily applied to other sporting and life events....The attempt to capture the inner lessons, seeing everything as a practice session for the next life adventure, was remarkable in its sensibility and practically."

Adhiratha Keefe, fellow SCMT member and first United Nations staff member to swim the Channel solo in 1985.

Video: Interviewwith Adriano after his English Channel swim in 2013

Famous Channel quotes

"An English Channel swim will always be a battle of one small, lone swimmer against the savage vastness of the open sea." - Michael Read, MBC, King of the English Channel (1979 - 2005) with 33 EC solos, President of the CSA

"Nothing great is easy." - Famous quote by Captain Matthew Webb, first person to successfully swim the English Channel unassisted in 1875

"If you want to successfully swim across the English Channel – you have to leave any doubt on the beach." - Lewis Pugh, pioneer swimmer and ocean advocate

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Abhejali nominated for Open Water Swimming Woman of the Year

By Vasanti Niemz

4 November, 2018

After becoming only the 4th woman to complete the Oceans 7 Challenge - swimming seven of the world's iconic open water swims, including the English Channel and the North Channel - Abhejali Bernardová from our Czech Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team has now been nominated for the 2018 World Open Water Swimming Woman of the Year. Abhejali completed her seventh and final swim this year on February 24, 2018, by conquering the Cook Strait between the North and South Island of New Zealand in quite challenging conditions. Voting is open to the public until January 1 2019, and can be accessed here.

Her nomination reads:Abhejali Bernardová is a peace ultrarunner (6-day runs + 24-hour runs + 100 km runs) turned swimmer who promotes endurance sports and self-transcendence via media appearances and speeches to the public and at school. The member of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team became the 4th woman to complete the Oceans Seven. After achieving the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, she crossed the English Channel (14 hours 37 minutes), Strait of Gibraltar (4 hours 35 minutes), Catalina Channel (9 hours 46 minutes), Tsugaru Channel (11 hours 7 minutes), Molokai Channel (21 hours 52 minutes), North Channel (10 hours 23 minutes), and Cook Strait (13 hours 9 minutes) between the ages of 34 and 41 to become the first person from the Czech Republic - a landlocked country - to swim across 7 iconic channels, all successful on her first attempt. She organized a record number of swimmers in a new popular 6-hour pool swim in the Czech Republic shortly after her last channel swim. She teaches about the importance of a calm mind for success in the open water and on dryland. For being a Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team ambassador who achieved the Oceans Seven, for continuing to serve as a peace runner, race director and an organizer of extreme sports that gives others an opportunity to experience their own challenges under safe conditions, and for lending a helping hand and friendly smile with a passion for long distance swimming as a mentor for people of all ages and abilities, Abhejali Bernardová of the Czech Republic is a worthy nominee for the 2018 World Open Water Swimming Woman of the Year.

Question (from interview on Daily News of Open Water Swimming): During your Oceans Seven channel swims, what point did you feel the absolute worse? How did you overcome this situation?

Abhejali: It was during the Molokai Channel crossing. The swim started at around 5 pm, it got dark by 7 pm, and I started to be really seasick. We arrived just 3 days prior to the swim - it was before my swim period, so I was tired and jet lagged on top of being seasick and depleted. After being seasick for quite a few hours, I asked how far we were. I usually don't do it, or much later, but I felt so exhausted physically - we also had to battle some strong current at the beginning of the swim. I was told we are not yet in the middle. I remember thinking that some miracle will have to happen for me to have enough physical strength to continue for another maybe 10 hours - it turned out to be much more. The team on the boat notified our friends around the world and they all ate on my behalf, sent their good wishes and prayers. Once the sun came out after maybe 12 hours of darkness, I was fine and could start eating. When all seemed back to normal I got badly stung by a jellyfish and then there was another strong current that had us moving only 1 mile per hour, but the worst was past. Read full interview »

Poster showing the locations of the Oceans Seven Swims

Here again the → link to the vote (of course you are invited to vote in all categories - so many inspiring athletes, achievements and offerings!)

View full article »

Adriano becomes the first person to swim ashore from Laje de Santos

By Nirbhasa Mageeauthor bio »

27 September, 2018

About the author:

Nirbhasa is originally from Ireland but currently lives in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is an enthusiastic multi-day runner, having twice completed both the Ten Day Race and the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race - the longest race in the world.

On September 24, 2018, Adriano Passini from the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team became the first person to swim from Laje de Santos - an islet known all over Brazil for its marine life - to the coastline, a distance of 25 miles (40 km). Adriano reached his goal at 7pm, after a journey of almost 12 hours.

Located a couple of hours away from São Paolo, Laje de Santos was the first ever marine park created by the state government, and is a favourite haunt of divers as well as people who visit for the local biodiversity. Adriano, who grew up in the nearby city of San Vicente, got the inspiration to do the crossing some years back on a a plane trip from Curitiba to São Paulo, when he saw Laje de Santos from the airplane. The conditions for the crossing are generally quite difficult, and there is only a narrow window to make the crossing before the waves become too rough - in May 2016, Adriano spent 3 weeks waiting for the waves to calm before ultimately having to abandon the attempt. This time, he had to wait until the last possible day before he would have had to return to his day job as an engineer.

Adriano was inspired to start swimming by his meditation teacher, Sri Chinmoy, who loved sports and saw that it was a field in which the practise of meditation could be put to powerful use. In particular, Sri Chinmoy encouraged his students to practise the philosophy of self-transcendence, to experience the liberating feeling of challenging one's percieved limitations. In 2013, Adriano swam the English Channel in a time of 11 hours and 10 minutes. (Members of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team have crossed the channel 47 times to date - the second most by any team). He later wrote a book about his experiences.

During the crossing from to Laje de Santos to the city of Santos, Adriano had an experienced team accompanying him in the boat - Ashirvad Zaiantchick, who had previously assisted him in his Channel swim, and Adriano's father, Aurélio Passini Júnior, as well as two local navigators, Cesar Elvin Laso and Marcio Pires Lopes Jacaré from the local ATM diving club, both of whom had much experience in navigating the treacherous waters. The area near Santos lies on one of the busiest shipping lanes in the Americas, and Adriano passed around 50 large ships during his swim. The crew departed from the city of Santos at 5:30 a.m, arriving at Laje de Santos at 7:10 am to begin the swim. During the swim, the conditions were partially cloudy with no wind. The water temperature was around 22ºC, with waves of about 1 metre high throughout the crossing. Upon completion, Adriano remarked "Today a dream has been realised, the impossible has become possible; after a lot of effort, I'm really happy to arrive in the city of Santos and complete my goal."